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Built from Scratch: How a Couple of Regular Guys Grew the Home Depot from Nothing to $30 Billion

Overview

One of the greatest entrepreneurial success stories of the past twenty years.

When a friend told Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank that "you've just been hit in the ass by a golden horseshoe," they thought he was crazy. After all, both had just been fired. What the friend, Ken Langone, meant was that they now had the opportunity to create the kind of wide-open warehouse store that would help spark a consumer revolution through low prices, excellent customer service, and wide availability of products.

Built from Scratch is the story of how two incredibly determined and creative people--and their associates--built a business from nothing to 761 stores and $30 billion in sales in a mere twenty years.

Built from Scratch tells many colorful stories associated with The Home Depot's founding and meteoric rise; shows that a company can be a tough, growth-oriented competitor and still maintain a high sense of responsibility to the community; and provides great lessons useful to people in any business, from start-ups to the Fortune 500.

Great Stories-"Ming the Merciless" The inside account of the man who fired Arthur Blank and Bernie Marcus "My people don't drive Cadillacs!" How Ross Perot almost got involved with The Home Depot "Take this job and shove it!" The banker who put his career on the line to get The Home Depot the loan that enabled it to survive"Folks, I tell ya, if these Atlanta stores were any bigger, we'd be paying Alabama sales tax." Home Depot's first good ol' southern advertising campaign

A Company with a Conscience- When disasters like the Oklahoma City bombing or Hurricane Andrew happen, Home Depot associates don't ask for permission to respond. They react from their hearts--whether that means keeping their store open all night or being on the scene with volunteers and relief supplies.

The Home Depot doesn't just contribute money to organizations like Habitat for Humanity and Christmas in April, but also provides its people to help lead and grow these community efforts.

Editorial Reviews

Kirkus Reviews 03/15/1999 pg. 433 (EAN 9780812930580, Hardcover)

Publishers Weekly 04/26/1999 pg. 69 (EAN 9780812930580, Hardcover)

Library Journal 06/01/1999 pg. 132 (EAN 9780812930580, Hardcover)

About the Author

Bernie Marcu is a cofounder of The Home Depot and currently serves as chairman of the board. From the company's inception until 1997, he served as CEO. With his wife, Billi Marcus, he founded the Marcus Foundation and the Marcus Developmental Resource Center, which provides support services for mentally impaired children and their parents. He is chairman of the Centers for Disease Control Foundation. He sits on many boards of directors, including the New York Stock Exchange, and participates in many civic organizations, including the City of Hope, a cancer research center, and the Shepherd Spinal Center.

Arthur Blank is a cofounder of The Home Depot and is the company's president and CEO. He serves on the board of trustees of several organizations, including the North Carolina Outward Bound School, the Carter Center, Emory University, and the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He was inducted into the Babson College Academy of Distinguished Entrepreneurs and was honored by the City of Hope for his fund-raising leadership. He has established the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation with his wife, Stephanie, and his children.

Bob Andelman lives with his wife and daughter in St. Petersburg, Florida, and has collaborated on many bestselling business books, including Mean Business and The Profit Zone.

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Overview

From the time of Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures" through the Great Depression, American towns and cities sought to lure footloose companies by offering lavish benefits. These ranged from taxpayer-financed factories, to tax exemptions, to outright gifts of money. This kind of government aid, known as "corporate welfare," is still around today. After establishing its historical foundations, James T. Bennett reveals four modern manifestations.

His first case is the epochal debate over government subsidy of a supersonic transport aircraft. The second case has its origins in Southern factory relocation programs of the 1930s--the practice of state and local governments granting companies taxpayer financed incentives. The third is the taking of private property for the enrichment of business interests. The fourth--export subsidies--has its genesis in the New Deal but matured with the growth of the Export-Import Bank, which subsidizes international business exchanges of America's largest corporate entities.

Bennett examines the prospects for a successful anti-corporate welfare coalition of libertarians, free market conservatives, Greens, and populists. The potential for a coalition is out there, he argues. Whether a canny politician can assemble and maintain it long enough to mount a taxpayer counterattack upon corporate welfare is an intriguing question.

Editorial Reviews

Prof. James Bennett's new book, Corporate Welfare, mounts a devastating, well-argued attack on corporate welfare policy in America. Bennett reviews the many appearances of corporate welfare in the US economy then proceeds to debunk the practice, expertly drawing on professional literature, informed commentary, policy analysis, and advocacy works. Bennett marshals interesting examples, case studies, and practices from across the field in an innovative framework. Bennett's work is especially timely as political leaders and some corporate magnates again look to corporate welfare policy in hopes of reviving moribund economies they arguably created in the first place. This book will be invaluable to general readers (taxpayers) who want to understand the issues and to policymakers and business leaders who want to do the right thing. Economists, policy analysts and commentators will also find fresh insights to relish in this interesting book.--Terry F. Buss, Carnegie Mellon University

Professor Bennett begins his excellent new book about corporate welfare with Alexander Hamilton's misguided schemes. Fortunately, those schemes were mainly blocked in the early Republic by the Jeffersonian party. The problem today--as Bennett skillfully documents--is that business subsidies are a bipartisan disease, chronic at all levels of government. Few politicians stand up for the taxpayer, despite citizen opposition to hand-outs from across the political spectrum. Hopefully, Bennett's stomach-turning stories will convince more people of the evils of crony capitalism.--Chris Edwards, DownsizingGovernment.org, Cato Institute

About the Author

James T. Bennett is professor of economics at George Mason University. He is the founder and editor of the Journal of Labor Research and has authored ten books with Transaction, including Mandate Madness and Corporate Welfare.

Ralph Nader is an American attorney, author, lecturer, and political activist.

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Corporate Welfare: Crony Capitalism That Enriches the Rich

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Overview From the time of Alexander Hamilton's "Report on Manufactures" through the Great Depression, American towns and cities sought to lure footloose companies by offering lavish benefits. These ranged from...

Overview

Elon Musk is the most daring entrepreneur of our time

There are few industrialists in history who could match Elon Musk's relentless drive and ingenious vision. A modern alloy of Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, and Steve Jobs, Musk is the man behind PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, and SolarCity, each of which has sent shock waves throughout American business and industry. More than any other executive today, Musk has dedicated his energies and his own vast fortune to inventing a future that is as rich and far-reaching as a science fiction fantasy.

In this lively, investigative account, veteran technology journalist Ashlee Vance offers an unprecedented look into the remarkable life and times of Silicon Valley's most audacious businessman. Written with exclusive access to Musk, his family, and his friends, the book traces his journey from his difficult upbringing in South Africa to his ascent to the pinnacle of the global business world. Vance spent more than fifty hours in conversation with Musk and interviewed close to three hundred people to tell the tumultuous stories of Musk's world-changing companies and to paint a portrait of a complex man who has renewed American industry and sparked new levels of innovation all while making plenty of enemies along the way.

In 1992, Elon Musk arrived in the United States as a ferociously driven immigrant bent on realizing his wildest dreams. Since then, Musk's roller-coaster life has brought him grave disappointments alongside massive successes. After being forced out of PayPal, fending off a life-threatening case of malaria, and dealing with the death of his infant son, Musk abandoned Silicon Valley for Los Angeles. He spent the next few years baffling his friends by blowing his entire fortune on rocket ships and electric cars. Cut to 2012, however, and Musk had mounted one of the greatest resurrections in business history: Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity had enjoyed unparalleled success, and Musk's net worth soared to more than $5 billion.

At a time when many American companies are more interested in chasing easy money than in taking bold risks on radical new technology, Musk stands out as the only businessman with enough dynamism and vision to tackle and even revolutionize three industries at once. Vance makes the case that Musk's success heralds a return to the original ambition and invention that made America an economic and intellectual powerhouse. Elon Musk is a brilliant, penetrating examination of what Musk's career means for a technology industry undergoing dramatic change and offers a taste of what could be an incredible century ahead.

Editorial Reviews

The SpaceX and Tesla founder certainly sees setbacks as an unavoidable part of innovation. But a brilliant new biography paints a picture of him as an obsessive, intolerant perfectionist. --Financial Times

Mr. Vance tells the stories of both SpaceX and Tesla with intricacy and insight. . . . What does come through is a sense of legitimate wonder at what humans can accomplish when they aim high, and aim weird.--Dwight Garner, New York Times

This work will likely serve as the definitive account of a man whom so far we've seen mostly through caricature. By the final pages, too, any reader will sense the need to put comparisons to Steve Jobs aside. Give Musk credit. There is no one like him. --New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Ashlee Vance is one of the most prominent writers on technology today. After spending several years reporting on Silicon Valley and technology for the New York Times, Vance went to Bloomberg Businessweek, where he has written dozens of cover and feature stories for the magazine on topics ranging from cyber espionage to DNA sequencing and space exploration

Overview

THE GLOBALIZATION OF WAL-MART is the only book that details Wal-Mart's expansion around the world, and its methods for exploiting its workers.

Covering more than 15 countries, world-wide, from North America to Europe, South America, Central America, Africa, and Asia, Professor Rosen reveals both how Wal-Mart has succeeded in becoming the largest retail multi-national corporation, as well as why Wal-Mart has failed in establishing a strong foothold in a few places.

This book also reveals how Wal-Mart's anti-union policies have allowed it to succeed financially, while leading many consumers and workers to demand better treatment. This book is dedicated to the future success of Wal-Mart workers to achieve fair pay and humane treatment while on their jobs.

About the Author

Dr, Ellen Israel Rosen is a Resident Scholar at the Womens' Studies Research Center at Brandeis University and the author of "Making Sweatshops: The Globalization of the U.S. Apparel Industry."

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The Globalization of Wal-Mart

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Overview THE GLOBALIZATION OF WAL-MART is the only book that details Wal-Mart's expansion around the world, and its methods for exploiting its workers. Covering more than 15 countries, world-wide, from...

Overview

A "New York Times" bestseller

Ev told Jack he had to chill out with the deluge of media he was doing. It s badfor the company, Ev said. It's sending the wrong message. Biz sat between them, watching like a spectator at a tennis match. But I invented Twitter, Jack said. No, you didn't invent Twitter, Ev replied. I didn t invent Twitter either. Neither did Biz. People don't invent things on the Internet. They simply expand on an idea that already exists.

Despite all the coverage of Twitter's rise, Nick Bilton of "The New York Times" is the first journalist to tell the full story a gripping drama of betrayed friendships and high stakes power struggles.

The four founders Evan Williams, Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey, and Noah Glass made a dizzyingly fast transition from ordinary engineers to wealthy celebrities. They fought each other bitterly for money, influence, publicity, and controlas Twitter grew larger and more powerful. Ultimately they all lost their grip on it.

Bilton's unprecedented access and exhaustive reporting have enabled him to write an intimate portrait of four friends who accidentally changed the world, and what they all learned along the way.

About the Author

Nick Biltonis a columnist and reporter for The New York Times, where he explores the disruptive aspects of technology on business, culture and society. His columns span everything from the future of technology and privacy to the impact of social media on the Web. He is a regular guest on national TV and radio and is the author ofI Live in the Future & Here s How It Works. He lives in Los Angeles.

Overview

Corporate social responsibility was one of the most consequential business trends of the twentieth century. Having spent decades burnishing reputations as both great places to work and generous philanthropists, large corporations suddenly abandoned their commitment to their communities and employees during the 1980's and 1990's, indicated by declining job security, health insurance, and corporate giving.

Douglas M. Eichar argues that for most of the twentieth century, the benevolence of large corporations functioned to stave off government regulations and unions, as corporations voluntarily adopted more progressive workplace practices or made philanthropic contributions. Eichar contends that as governmental and union threats to managerial prerogatives withered toward the century's end, so did corporate social responsibility. Today, with shareholder value as their beacon, large corporations have shred their social contract with their employees, decimated unions, avoided taxes, and engaged in all manner of risky practices and corrupt politics.

This book is the first to cover the entire history of twentieth-century corporate social responsibility. It provides a valuable perspective from which to revisit the debate concerning the public purpose of large corporations. It also offers new ideas that may transform the public debate about regulating larger corporations.

Editorial Reviews

"Through sophisticated analysis, copious evidence, and deep historical grounding, Eichar argues persuasively that corporate social responsibility is not only inherently limited but indeed a central ideological plank in justifying the expansion of corporate power and domain over the last century. A must read for anyone who wants to understand how corporate social responsibility is actually part of the problem, not the solution, when it comes to protecting society and the environment from corporate harm."--Joel Bakan, author of The Corporation

"Eichar has written an extremely important book that makes crucial contributions to the expanding literature on corporate social responsibility. He provides a historical account of the strategies employed by corporate America to avoid responsibility for their organizational behaviors and exposes the deep-seated flaws in contemporary regulatory structures that have become increasingly reliant on voluntary adoption of socially responsible corporate practices."--Harland Prechel, author of Big Business and the State

About the Author

Douglas M. Eichar is an associate professor of sociology and chair of the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Hartford.

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The Rise and Fall of Corporate Social Responsibility

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Overview Corporate social responsibility was one of the most consequential business trends of the twentieth century. Having spent decades burnishing reputations as both great places to work and generous philanthropists,...

Overview

Berkshire Hathaway, the $300 billion conglomerate that Warren Buffett built, is among the world's largest and most famous corporations. Yet, for all its power and celebrity, few people understand Berkshire, and many assume it cannot survive without Buffett. This book proves them wrong.

In a comprehensive portrait of the corporate culture that unites Berkshire's subsidiaries, Lawrence A. Cunningham unearths the traits that assure the conglomerate's continued prosperity. Riveting stories of each subsidiary's origins, triumphs, and journey to Berkshire reveal how managers generate economic value from intangibles like thrift, integrity, entrepreneurship, autonomy, and a sense of permanence.

Rich with lessons for those wishing to profit from the Berkshire model, this engaging book is a valuable read for entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, family business members, and investors, and it is an important resource for scholars of corporate stewardship. General readers will enjoy learning how an iconoclastic businessman transformed a struggling textile company into a corporate legacy.

Editorial Reviews

How did Warren Buffett build such a great firm? To unravel this mystery, Cunningham takes a deep dive inside the culture of Berkshire Hathaway's subsidiaries, highlighting the values of integrity, kinship, and autonomy--and revealing how building moats around the castles may help the firm outlast its visionary founder.--Adam Grant, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, author of "Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success

Berkshire Hathaway's trajectory has been so seamless that Warren Buffett's professional transition has gone almost unnoticed. The man who began his business life as a precocious 'stock picker' has morphed into the chief executive of one of the largest collections of businesses in the world. Lawrence A. Cunningham's book astutely chronicles this development.--From the foreword by Tom Murphy, Berkshire Hathaway director and former CEO of ABC, Inc.

Cunningham is a writer and scholar well known to the Berkshire Hathaway faithful, and he was Warren Buffett's pick for cataloging and organizing Berkshire's famous annual reports. Now he has taken us in a new direction, directly into the purchases of companies made by Buffett. An insightful and important book.--Robert Hagstrom, author of "The Warren Buffett Way"

About the Author

Lawrence A. Cunningham is the Henry St George Tucker III Research Professor at George Washington University Law School. He has been a professor of law and business for more than twenty years at Boston College, Massachusetts, George Washington University, and Yeshiva University, New York. He is the author of The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America (2013) and editor from 1994 to 2001 of the leading treatise on contract law, Corbin on Contracts. His writing has appeared opposite the editorial page in The New York Times, Financial Times and the National Law Journal.

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Berkshire Beyond Buffett: The Enduring Value of Values

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Overview Berkshire Hathaway, the $300 billion conglomerate that Warren Buffett built, is among the world's largest and most famous corporations. Yet, for all its power and celebrity, few people understand...